During an NFL owners meeting last week to discuss the league and some of its issues, including the National Anthem protests, Houston Texans owner said, "We can’t have the inmates running the prison."

It's always nice to characterize your (mostly African-American) employees as incarcerated felons.

This is not a surprising sentiment held by some NFL owners, unfortunately. I have a source who was at a similar meeting a few years ago and players were compared to slabs of meat that you buy at the supermarket. To say he was shocked was an understatement.

ESPN broke the story and many of the Texans players are pissed, like Troy Vincent.

NFL executive Troy Vincent said he was offended by McNair's characterization of the players as "inmates." Vincent said that in all his years of playing in the NFL -- during which, he said, he had been called every name in the book, including the N-word -- he never felt like an "inmate."

ESPN The Magazine's Seth Wickersham details some of the cringeworthy moments during the meetings between players and owners that took place last week.

McNair, as you might imagine was in favor of banning players from protesting during the national anthem.

Deadspin: The Texans’ practice started half an hour late today, according to ESPN’s Sarah Barshop. And Hopkins, who hadn’t been listed with an injury this week, didn’t show up.

"Head coach Bill O’Brien, who said he is “100 percent” behind his players, referred to Hopkins’s absence as a “personal day”

Soon after McNair offered up an non-apology apology.